The great novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922) made the little town of Illiers famous, describing it in fascinating detail under the name of Combray in his great work, A la Recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).

The famed watergardens at Louis XIV's Château de Versailles required vast amounts of water. The springs nearby proved insufficient, so engineers hatched the idea to transport water from the River Eure beside the Château de Maintenon.